


Boys

by oliverdalstonbrowning



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dysphoria, M/M, Queer Marauders, Trans Remus, Transgender, four boys who are gay for each other, idk what else to tag this as, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 01:31:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3190763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliverdalstonbrowning/pseuds/oliverdalstonbrowning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus doubts himself and Sirius plays Space Oddity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boys

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Kieran.

Dawn is rising over the tumbling hills of Scotland, last night’s thin frost melting in the crevices of Hogwarts’ many faces, the building and grounds coming alive in the patchy glow of orange and yellow and grey. The sun tries its best to break through the clouds, but with little success, as rain is scheduled soon to dance against the window panes like the feet of a thousand tiny faeries, filling the Black Lake and feeding Hagrid’s vegetables.

   It is a Saturday, which in many places of the world is assigned to be a day of sleeping. The majority of inhabitants in the castle are doing exactly that, turning over in their beds and pulling curtains tight against the flickers of sunlight and groaning at the abrasive sound of alarms that have not been turned off for the weekend.

   But not Sirius Black.

  Sirius Black is awake and he watches the sun rise from his bed by the window. He can see the slow melting of the ice in the cracks in the glass and the sun greeting him with fleeting rays against the Lake. He is thinking.

   What Sirius is thinking about is ideally Sirius’ business, but it is safe to assume that he is thinking about Remus Lupin, because if Sirius is honest with himself – and Sirius always is – there is rarely a moment in his day when Remus does not harbour his attention. Perhaps he imagines too often of the way Remus’ face lights up when he cracks a smile, or how he spent the majority of winter in scarves and sweaters and sporting a gentle pink nose that makes Sirius’ heart turn over with giddy somersaults even now in the coming of spring. But he justifies it all, because James knows, and when he asks why, Sirius always replies with, “Because Remus deserves to be thought of that way.”

   He can hear Remus stirring in the bed closest to the door, soft sighs and rustles against the cold of the morning that make Sirius’ stomach knot pleasantly. He likes the morning and he likes Remus in the morning. He likes the sound of the other boy’s careful movements behind the curtains as he tries not to wake the others. James and Peter do not know it, but Remus and Sirius are morning people, and Sirius thinks it’s about time he took advantage of that.

   He has a moment to stretch noisily, making his consciousness known to Remus. Sirius can hear his fingers turning the pages of a book every few minutes, and as he approaches the other bed on tip-toe, he can smell the sweet shampoo Remus uses because he sleeps with his hair wet and the smell stays upon his pillow even after all the sleeping is done and his hair is dry.

   “Remus. _Pssst_ , Remus.” Sirius flutters his hand against the drapes as a warning sign of his intention to intrude.

   “Shit, Sirius. What?”

   “Can I come in?”

   “No. Go away,” comes Remus’ biting reply. But Sirius knows he does not mean it so honestly. He can tell in the way Remus paused before he said it and in the smile on his lips that Sirius can hear.

   Sirius sticks his head through the curtains. “I require a cuddle,” he says pitifully, though his eyes sparkle with amusement.  

   Remus is propped up against his pillows – of which there are approximately six, and Sirius doesn’t rightly know where he got them from – and he is reading the book. He blinks brown eyes at Sirius; brown like the bottom of a jar of honey or brown like the earth after rain.  He is irritated, but there is curiosity also, and he is still bleary from sleep and from squinting at his book. The early sun filters through the red drapes and into the messy tresses of his hair and Sirius cannot help but smile, because Remus is very handsome and he is very soft and lovely, and Sirius only wishes he was told more often. He thinks of Remus like parchment; crumpled and used and tossed around a bit, but no less strong and just as easily written on as any other.  

   He beams at his friend, batting his eyelashes with exaggeration as though he is a woman come to seek her lover’s company.

   Sirius likes to joke with Remus. With James he is straightforward and in the actuality of their jokes there is merriment, and with Peter it is always just jests and fun and there is no honesty but there are no lies either. But with Remus there is always joking and playing to hide truths and they will chuckle over little things like kissing and cuddling, but there is always honesty behind it. To Sirius, anyway.

   Remus sighs and shifts his position, making room for his friend. Sirius squeezes himself into Remus’ privacy. He is rarely allowed in Remus’ bed and so it feels new and the warmth is different. He likes to sleep in James’ bed sometimes and for most of those sometimes, James sleeps there too because he thinks Sirius’ bed is too soft. But no one is allowed in Remus’ bed even though it is the best one of the four. Sirius feels blessed and he likes that the temperateness is different. Perhaps it is because he likes Remus, and so the heat that comes from him is always going to be superior to James’ or Peter’s or Lily’s. In fact, Sirius does not think he will get used to it, and so from now on desire only Remus’ touch, and Remus’ arm across his shoulders, as it is now, for Sirius has buried himself into the crook underneath Remus’ shoulder and Remus continues to read, though there is the ghost of a smile on his face.

   He plays with Sirius’ hair unconsciously, twisting long black tresses around his nimble fingers. Sirius basks in the silence and comfort and the simple thing of being with Remus while Remus reads. Because when Remus reads, he is the eye of a hurricane and he stops moving and the entire world could change and shift and transform and Remus would continue to read and he would look up on occasion and see a difference and pay no mind, for the worlds in his books are far more interesting.

   Sirius doesn’t care. Lily once said that Remus ought to take a break from books, because pretending all those strange worlds are real can’t be healthy. But Sirius knows Remus better. Remus knows the worlds are false and he isn’t one to compare them to his own. He just sometimes needs to escape, just like Sirius needs to escape from his own flesh and frame. Sirius does not think it is better to be a dog than a person, and Remus does not think the worlds in his books are better than the one he is living.

   The sun continues to climb steadily in the sky and the owls tuck heads under their wings to sleep and James’ snores lessen, interrupted occasionally by the stirring of the castle as it wakes up.

   They lay like this for a while, Remus’ fingers in Sirius’ hair and Sirius’ head on Remus’ chest. It is softer, for some reason. Sirius does not regularly rest his head on Remus, but he can still tell that something is out of the ordinary.

   “Remus,” he says. He knows Remus doesn’t appreciate being disturbed, but it’s important. “How come you’re more comfortable than usual?”

   Remus does not respond immediately, and Sirius looks up to see why his friend has gone suddenly quiet. Their eyes meet, and Remus’ cheeks go pink and he looks away quickly, seemingly embarrassed, and Sirius is desperate to know why.

   “Well, I’m not wearing my binder, so my chest– ” he does not finish the sentence.

   “Oh, of course. I forgot,” Sirius says.

   His reaction is met with more silence and he casts his gaze up once more and he notes the look of shock on Remus’ face. Sirius sits up, turning towards his friend, his throat burning and his stomach twisting. He hopes he has not spoken poorly. His mouth gets away from him; he forgets. Too often he forgets that he can hurt his friends.

   “You forgot?” Remus mumbles, looking down at his hands, which have abandoned his book.

   “Well, I didn’t _forget_ , I just… what I meant was…” but Sirius doesn’t know what he meant and he is being overcome with guilt and he wishes he weren’t so useless a friend as to forget that Remus is transgender. “I’m sorry,” he adds helplessly.

   “No!” Remus suddenly cries. There is a muffled moan from one of the other beds at this noise. Remus quietens. “You’ve said nothing wrong, Sirius. It’s just… you forgot that I’m not really a boy?”

   This breaks Sirius’ heart. It makes his fingers tremble and his voice catches in his throat.

   “You are a boy, Remus.”

   He does not know how else to prove his sentiment, so he leans closer to Remus and places a hand on his cheek, stroking a thumb there for a second. He smiles and kisses Remus, on the lips. “See, there? I just kissed a boy.”

   A smirk plays at the corners of Remus’ mouth. Sirius kisses him again, on his cheeks, and on his nose and chin and head and mouth and eyelids and he kisses all the parts of Remus’ face until the other boy is laughing, because Sirius loves Remus, and wants to make him laugh. Sirius loves Remus so much he thinks his heart might give out.

   “You know what else?”

   “What?”

   “I love a boy, too. And I hope that boy will always hold my hand when I ask him to. I hope he will always let me borrow his boxers when mine are dirty, and I hope he’ll always remember that he’s my best friend and he is loved very much, no matter his own self-doubt,”

   “You hope for all these things?”

   Sirius nods. “And I also hope he loves me too.”

   “Of course I do, Sirius. I love you with all my heart.”

   “Gay!” comes a voice from the other side of the room, muffled slightly by fabric and pillows and space, but no less discernable as James Potter’s.

   Sirius casts a look to Remus, who returns it with a nod, both of them sombre, but only for a moment. They take a pillow each and slip silently out of Remus’ bed. They creep to James’, where the silhouette of the Marauder can be seen against the curtains in the sporadic sunlight.

   They jump, bursting through the curtains on both sides and attacking with battle cries. James shrieks, holding his arms up as he is pummelled with pillows.

   “Surrender!” Sirius yells.

   “Not to a couple of queers!”

   Sirius hits him harder, laughing. “Surrender or face the consequences!”

   “What are the consequences?” James manages through bursts of hilarity.

   Sirius and Remus pause for a moment, thinking. Remus sits on James so he doesn’t escape.

   “I’ll snog Lily!” Sirius decides.

   “Pfft, as if she would want to.” James shoots Sirius a dirty look and pushes Remus off him. “Animals.”

   “I don’t see why she wouldn’t; she’s already had a taste of me from your lips. She probably thinks I’m delicious,” Sirius quips, winking at James as he untangles himself from his sheets.

   James does ‘gag-me-with-a-spoon’ and kicks Sirius off his bed. He turns to Remus, who is helping Sirius back on his feet. “Despite being very homosexual about it, Sirius is right, Moony.”

   Remus peers at his friend through long, fair eyelashes, chewing his lip. Sirius can almost feel his heart racing and wants to hold him, but refrains for now because James is speaking and Sirius respects James enough to let him finish. While he does not speak often from the heart about things that are not Lily or Quidditch or Honeydukes chocolate, when he does it is always better than any of the words Sirius could hope to string together.

   “He isn’t the only one who cares about you,” James continues. “Because there’s a reason you’re our friend and there’s a reason you’re in this dorm and I’m sure there is a perfectly good reason as to why Peter doesn’t have trousers on.”

   Sirius has been wrong about James before.

   Peter, who has grudgingly gotten out of bed to see why it is so noisy at such an early hour, looks down, makes a compliant sort of face, and finds his trousers in his bed. “What’s going on?” he asks as he pulls them on.

   “Moony’s doubting himself again,” explains Sirius, leaning on Remus in what is supposed to be an effortless and good-natured stance, but is in fact impossible and awkward as Remus is easily half a foot taller than him.

   Peter scoffs. “Moony’s an idiot.” He doesn't not say it harshly. He says it truthfully and affectionately. 

   “But, like, a smart idiot,” Sirius adds.

   Remus laughs and Sirius watches as he breathes more calmly and he grins more widely and it makes Sirius’ heart do things it rightly shouldn’t be able to, but does regardless. He kisses Remus on the cheek and he hopes that today will be a good Saturday. Maybe they will do some homework and maybe they will play Quidditch if it doesn’t rain too much and maybe Remus will get dressed and join them. But it will be okay if he doesn’t.

   Sirius goes to the gramophone and he flicks through the vinyl records that sit in an old cardboard box they had once used to smuggle Zonko’s products into the school. The vinyls in the box are all theirs, though they aren’t quite sure where all of them are from. They are all parts of people they have met and are friends with and might one day be friends with. Sirius sees The Beatles and he knows that’s Peter’s and Lily is responsible for The Smiths and Remus likes The Who so there is lots of The Who. But Sirius pulls out Space Oddity because it’s one of his favourites and he knows it will make Remus feel better. The four boys  get their pillows and lie on the floor and talk about safe things like breakfast and why Marlene still won’t talk to Sirius even after he apologized for getting bubble gum in her hair and why girls are complicated in the way that girls are. Remus smiles and participates. He shows them a funny quote from his book about girls and he puts underwear on his head so he can impersonate James, and Peter finds it funny, but James does not.

   Sirius knows it will happen again. He knows it will be hard and that Remus will doubt himself and maybe the next time will be better than today or maybe it will be worse. But Sirius will be there and he will put on a record and sing out of tune and he’ll be sure to see that Remus smiles at least once for that day, no matter how bad it is.

  

 

  

 


End file.
